WEBVTT - Turkey’s Bombing Iraqi Kurdistan 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:13.640 Col Zone media. 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:16.880 In the last few weeks, indeed the last few months, 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:19.000 the eyes of the world have been on the trusties 0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:21.520 afflicted on the people of Palestine on a daily basis. 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:25.160 For the first time in most of our lifetimes, tens 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:27.240 of thousands of people have taken to the streets to 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.120 lift their voices for a stateless station of Palestine and 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:34.120 against Israel's un checked mass murder of civilians. It's something 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:36.800 I never thought I would see in the US, and 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:38.920 one of my first visits here, I was staying at 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:41.080 a bed and breakfast in the Bronx in late December. 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:43.559 It was cold and I was wearing a kafir to 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:46.720 stay warm, as I still often do. I remember wearing 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:48.320 it while I was talking to small guys while I 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:51.080 was waiting for the train, and we talked about Palestine 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:53.440 for a long time. I ended up giving one of 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:55.440 them my kafir and he gave me some cool badgets, 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:58.120 so I still have one jacket somewhere. I was hopeful 0:00:58.160 --> 0:01:00.760 after that, but since then I've lived here for more 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:03.640 than a decade. It was really not for about fifteen 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.160 years that I saw someone else in the US without 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:08.920 a direct connection to Palestine who wanted to show up 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:11.640 for the Palestinians. It's an important cause and it's one 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:13.640 that we've been supporting here on our podcast with our 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.679 coverage and speaking for myself also with my presence when 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:20.679 I can. But as the world looked at Gaza, bombs 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:24.360 also fell on Kurdistan. It's equally hard, if not harder, 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:26.880 to find solidarity for the Kurdish freedom movement in the 0:01:27.000 --> 0:01:31.080 United States. I have a Kurdish kafir as well. A 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:33.280 Kurdish migrant there met in the mountains gave it to 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:35.720 me on one cold night last year after I said 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:38.760 good evening to him in Comanche. Stinks of campfires and 0:01:38.800 --> 0:01:41.520 cigarettes and I wearried all the time. I don't think 0:01:41.520 --> 0:01:44.760 anyone has ever recognized it, let alone said anything positive 0:01:44.760 --> 0:01:47.360 about it. But someone did once ask me if it 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:50.520 was a rasped thing. So while our eyes have been 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:54.320 on Gaza, those of Turkish drones and warplanes have been 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.600 on the mountains of southern Kurdistan. Bombs have been going 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:00.800 off in kurdis Dine for a very long time. Indeed, 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:03.800 before Gernica, Britain was dropping bombs on people in the 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:08.280 Middle East without paintings to commemorate it. State boundaries and 0:02:08.320 --> 0:02:12.200 alliances have changed a lot since those first poems, as 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:15.400 has technology, but the fact that death from above has 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.560 remained a consistent tool of the colonial state hasn't changed. 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:22.600 When I was in kurdis Dan in October twenty twenty three, 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:26.320 it was amidst almost constant drone strikes. I had to 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:28.960 conduct my interviews in a climate of secrecy and concern, 0:02:29.600 --> 0:02:31.720 somewhat for my own safety, but also for the safety 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:35.520 of my interviewees, who took great and serious personal risks 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:37.800 to come and meet me. One of the people I 0:02:37.880 --> 0:02:41.480 met was Zagros Heuer, a spokesman for the kurdis Dan 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:47.239 Communities Union or in Kurdish Koma sivakn Kurdistdani, it's generally 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.840 known as the KSEK by its Curtis initials. Recently I 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:53.440 connected with Zagros again and I asked him to explain 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:54.960 this latest round of aggression. 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:57.560 Hello, dear James, I hope you're doing well. 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:01.079 As far as your first question is concerned, I can 0:03:01.120 --> 0:03:05.880 say that this operation has started from sixteenth of April, 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:11.880 six days before advanced visit to Baghdad, and in the 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:19.040 last weeks the Tekish Army has extended these operations and 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:24.160 this invading army has moved further deep into the Iraqi 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:31.480 territory and the Kurdistan region. Now they have set up checkpoints, 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:37.440 they stop civilians, they interrogate them. According to CPT report, 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:42.119 CPT stands for Community Community Peace Making Teams. 0:03:43.000 --> 0:03:43.400 It is. 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:50.920 A civil society organization active in Iraq and Kurdistan Region 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:58.280 of Iraq. According to CPT report, in the last months, 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:03.360 there has been two hundred thirty eight bombardments in those 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:07.880 areas and the two thousand hectares of agricultural land have 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:13.920 been burned to ashes. And now six hundred two villages 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:19.200 are under the threat of displacement and one hundred and 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:21.320 sixty two of them have already been displaced. 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:25.800 They have been raised to earth. From the start of this. 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:30.720 Year, according to CPP data, oney seven hundred attacks have 0:04:30.880 --> 0:04:38.000 been have been done and this comes against the backdrop 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:44.000 of attacks in twenty twenty three where one thy five 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:46.880 hundred forty eight bombardments have taken place. 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.240 If you're not familiar with the KCK on his behalfs 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:52.560 are Grossi speaking, you can think of it as the 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:56.240 umbrella group that unites various Kurdish freedom movements in Bakur 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:02.960 north but Sure or south or west, and Rodulat or east, 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:06.839 to use the Kurdish terms. These parts of the Kurdish 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:11.680 homeland are found in different states respectively. They are in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:15.680 and Iran. In each of these states, Kurdish people represent 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:19.919 a minority. Under the Assad regime. In Syria, Syrian Kurds 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.400 were stripped of their citizenship and forced out of their 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:24.719 homes and what is known as the Arab Belt program. 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:28.600 In Turkey, they've been bombed, banned from speaking their language, 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:31.239 and even have their very existence denied by the state. 0:05:32.160 --> 0:05:34.680 In Iran, tens of thousands of Kurds were killed when 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:37.000 they rose up for autonomy in nineteen seventy nine, and 0:05:37.000 --> 0:05:39.680 they still cannot teach their children in their own language. 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:44.320 In Iraq, they were subjected to genocidal violence, chemical weapons, 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:47.680 and the murder enforced Arabization of tens of thousands of 0:05:47.720 --> 0:05:50.039 Kurds during what is known as the Anfhal. If you 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:53.320 ever find yourself in Sulomania or Slomani as it's known 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:56.720 in Kurdish, you can visit the Incredible Museum there, which 0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:59.560 documents the tortured history of the Kurdish people at the 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.560 hands of the Iraqi state. It's a very moving place. 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.240 On entering the museum, you'll walk through a hallway that's 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:09.200 covered from floor to ceiling with broken pieces of mirrors. 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:14.119 Each represents a life cut short during the anph After 0:06:14.200 --> 0:06:17.560 this entrance, the first exhibit you'll see has a large 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:21.200 sign that says, in those days, we had no friends 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:25.320 but the mountains. It's an old and sometimes overused aphorism 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.400 about the Kurds, but it's not untrue. In the mountains 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:32.200 of southern Kurdistan. The Kurdistan Freedom Movement aims to liberate 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:34.720 the Kurdish people from all four states, and indeed from 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.920 the state altogether, and it's in these mountains that's found 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.200 a place where it could avoid state violence. The mountains 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:45.520 of Kurdistan have long provided a safe place, and especially 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:49.599 in recent years, the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan controlled by 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:53.919 Baffet Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan which shares power in 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:57.400 the Kurdistan Autonomous Region of Iraq with the Kurdistan Democratic 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:01.880 Party headed by Musud Barzani. The Kurdish Freedom Movement, that 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:04.400 is the casey K, has been able to exist largely 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.640 without the state. This, of course has always been unpopular 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:10.720 in Anchoror, and he didn't Bagdad. A recent offensive by 0:07:10.760 --> 0:07:14.680 Turkey seek not only to displace the PKK that's the 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:16.920 Curdistan Workers Party which is part of the k c 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:20.200 K and its allies from the mountains, but also to 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:23.760 extend their state control there. Now, I could go on 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:25.880 f on a diversion about James Scott here, but that's 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.720 another episode that I'm working on, so I'll spare you Instead. 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:34.160 I asked Mohammed Hamasila, a Kurdish historian, to explain the 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.440 impact of this latest round of aggression and how local 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:38.560 people felt about it. 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:46.640 People here in Samni, in the p K controlled area 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:54.160 or even in Kulasan, our sympathy with PK sympathy with 0:07:55.160 --> 0:08:03.000 the sympathy so they see the really extra struggle against 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:07.680 an enemy went to invent the whole son went to 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:13.280 move the want to burn the vocal stand is in 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:16.880 my point of view, it's it's not that the case 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:21.600 of of peak of and there are there they have 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:26.160 the same issue on the same stand with with with 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:31.040 with the with the Sirian part of Augustan. 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:37.959 People here. So I'm especially in getting one or not 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:39.640 the pewty control. I think that. 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:45.080 With the with the struggle of Java, the struggle of 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:51.840 of and they did very issue for for for their 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:59.560 people and they have actually very concrete program for for 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:00.640 the future. 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:04.000 Turkey, however, seeing the existence of the movement as a 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:06.959 threat to its national security, has begun a campaign to 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:10.760 eliminate the movement wherever it finds it. As Muhammad mentioned, 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:13.080 the history of the Kurdish people in Turkey is one 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:15.680 that's riddled with state of violence, and it's that which 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:18.920 I want to discuss today. Turkey has long vacillated between 0:09:18.920 --> 0:09:22.480 a genocidal denial of the existence of Kurdish people, recognizing 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:24.360 that they exist only in so far as it allows 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:27.280 them to be targets for bombing. We could really start 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:31.640 this history almost anywhere in the twentieth century. Indeed, following 0:09:31.640 --> 0:09:34.959 a series of suppressed rebellions, the entirety of northern Kurdistan 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:37.720 was closed military area in which Turkey did not allow 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:41.160 foreigners from nineteen twenty five to nineteen sixty five. But 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:43.280 I want to start it just after a coup in 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:47.680 nineteen eighty, when Abdullah Oujelen had recently founded the PKK 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.760 or Kurdistan Workers' Party and was beginning to view a 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:53.840 vision of Kurdish liberation that was rooted in a Marxist, 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:58.120 Leninist and socialist analysis and ideas of national liberation. Soon 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:01.160 after the nineteen eighty coup, Turkey began to refer to 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:03.960 the Kurds as Mountain Turks, and although it doesn't do 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.040 this as much anymore, it did recently release school books 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:10.560 in the Aarbacere, a majority Kurdish region, that made no 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:13.160 reference to the Kurds or their language, and asserted that 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:17.640 people that spoke a dialect of Turkish don't they speak Kurdish. 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.600 It's this denial of their very existence. Zagrest told me 0:10:21.960 --> 0:10:24.080 that made the Kurdish Freedom Guerrillas take up arms in 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:26.880 nineteen eighty four, which is actually forty years ago. Yesterday, 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:28.360 you were listening to this on the day it comes out. 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:35.280 But after the military of nineteen eighty and the inhumane 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:41.280 tortures in the notorious prison of the Arbaker Armed City, 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:47.079 the movement embarked on a strategy of legitimate self defense, 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:52.000 on which the military struggle against the Turkish state starting 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:55.640 from fifteen of August nineteen eighty. 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:58.320 Four, Since then, there have been periods of ceasefire and 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.280 periods of conflict, with tens of thousands of lives lost. 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:04.840 Both sides have killed civilians as part of their attacks 0:11:04.840 --> 0:11:08.439 on the other. The most recentcies fire was signed twenty thirteen, 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.360 and as a result, the PKK began slowly withdrawing to 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:16.160 the mountains of Iraqi, Kurdistan. In twenty fifteen, when the 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:19.880 Syrian Kurdish YPG and YPGA fighters were leading the battle 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:23.679 against ISIS, Turkey broke the ceasefire between the PKK and 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.400 itself began attacking the Kurdish fighters, forcing them into a 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:30.480 war on two fronts. As far as Turkey is concerned, 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:37.360 the YPG, YPJ, KCK, YBS in Azed Areas and all 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.800 other elements of the Kurdistan Freedom Movement are just different 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.000 names for the PKK, which it considers to be a 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:47.360 terrorist organization. Everyday life for Kurdish people in Turkey can 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:50.600 be hard. I've spoken to hundreds, if not thousands of 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:53.559 them in the last year, often sitting around fires in 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:57.320 the mountains, working together to build wooden shelters for their children, 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:00.000 or sharing the balls of beans at my friends curt 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:02.600 Because the state refused to feed the people it was 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:06.400 detaining in the open air for days. These aren't conversations 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:09.719 I recorded, because that wouldn't be safe. There's a very 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:12.719 real danger of these folks not getting asylum and being 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.640 sent back to a country where they've seen their friends murdered, 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.439 their election results denied, their job applications thrown away, and 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.400 their language suppressed. Having them on the record would be 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.680 a huge risk to their safety. And not every interaction 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.199 I have with people, even people I'm writing about, has 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:30.319 to we turned into content to go between the adverts. 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:33.560 So sometimes I just do things because I like to 0:12:33.600 --> 0:12:36.320 do them. If you'd like to know more about these stories, 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:38.080 you could find a link to a piece I wrote 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:41.280 for the Kurdish piece ins due in the show notes. Anyway, 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:59.959 here's an ad break. The situation in Iraq is different. 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.160 The Kurtis do An Aotomina's region enjoys a great degree 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.280 of autonomy from Baghdad. They're chiefly run by two parties, 0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:10.760 the KDP and the p UK. The KDP enjoys influence 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:13.960 in Abil Or how Lay and Kurdish in Slomania. The 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:17.280 p UK is in control in these areas, especially those 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:20.880 of the KDP. A more neoliberal vision of Kurdish identity 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:23.960 is pursued, and how lahis or skyscrapers lid up all 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:26.880 night huge mansions, but also the whole areas of the 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:29.240 city struggling to get by or sometimes not even having 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.800 active cee around water. The vision of Kurdish identity here 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:35.400 is not a threatening to Turkey, and the KDP seems 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:37.200 to take the line that the PKK or to keep 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.640 its struggle within the Turkish borders. The PUK has been 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:44.320 more sympathetic to the KCK. The PKK. It's often in 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:48.000 the mountains near Slomanian du Hok that Turkey targets Kurdish 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:51.640 guerrillas and their infrastructure. For the last forty years, Turkey 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:55.040 has remained extremely hostile to division of Kurdish liberation, with 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:58.680 the democratic and federal system that Ojerland and the movement 0:13:58.720 --> 0:14:02.079 that follows him have adopted. I asked Zagros to explain 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:04.720 the connection between the Kurdish struggling North and East Syria, 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:07.920 which may listens will probably be familiar with, and the 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:10.120 element to the Kurdish freedom movement in other parts of 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:13.040 Kurdistan which they might not be familiar with. And I'll 0:14:13.080 --> 0:14:16.280 ask interview I spoke to Zagros about history in Spain. 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.400 Now it's history. To give me a history lesson. By 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:23.280 the way, he calls the Oderland leader appo here rab 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:27.240 apple in Kurdish. It's a common contraction that's used all 0:14:27.280 --> 0:14:29.920 over Kurdistan, and apple is also the evocative form of 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:31.800 the Comanche word for a paternal uncle. 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.840 A leader uncle migrated to the Middle East. He migrated 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:41.320 to Syria and Lebanon. I mean months before the military 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:45.120 coup in Turkey, in the military coup of nineteen eighty. 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:49.200 He went there on his own. There was only one 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:54.880 comrade with him. First he entered the city of Kogani 0:14:55.600 --> 0:15:02.160 and from the he found his way to Lebanon, to Beirut. 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:06.200 In Lebanon, he made relations with the Palatinian groups. He 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:09.280 even took part in the resistance of the Palatinian groups 0:15:09.320 --> 0:15:15.000 against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. For nearly twenty years, 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:18.560 he waged the freedom of struggle from Lebanon and Syria. 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:24.120 In doing so, he educated, he trained, and organized the 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.520 Kurdish people in Rajawa, Kerkistan. 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:30.400 In this sense, his struggle is twofold. 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:35.760 First day he developed self awareness in the people of 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:39.400 Rajawa with regard to the natural and cultural identity, and 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:44.360 brought the Rajawa people together, who had been divided by 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:50.600 the many Arab builts and demographic change operations of the 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:57.040 bath regime. All these organizational activities were done despite the 0:15:57.040 --> 0:16:02.320 Sydian regime, and he managed to run a delicate balance 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:06.840 to foil the repressive measures of the Syrian regime. 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:10.880 There I'll just interject here to explain these terms. Bathis 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:13.920 Syria and Hafizala said and his son bashirol A said, 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:17.120 attempted to divide and deny the existence of the Kurdish 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:20.000 people in many ways. Some of these included omitting them 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:23.720 from censuses, denying them citizenship, prohibiting the public use of 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:27.120 their language and demographic transfers, and installed belts of Arab 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:31.280 people in areas that were majority Kurdish. Nonetheless, a Sid 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:34.920 also saw benefit allowing the PKK to exist within his borders, 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:38.360 especially in the parts of Lebanon that Syria occupied, in 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:40.800 order to use them as a tool against other states. 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:46.560 Secondly, he got this nationally and culturally aware people of 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:50.680 Rajava to support the struggle in North Kordistan. 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:54.880 Therefore, thousands of Rojava. 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:58.960 You were first organized and educated in villages in cities, 0:17:00.080 --> 0:17:03.960 and then they joined the Gerula struggle and fought in 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:10.000 North Kodestan in Baku Karalistan. There's a struggle served to 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:17.000 unite Rajawa and North Koralistan Baku Karalistan and developed shared 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:25.520 national political awareness and attitudes. Thousands of Rajawa youth boys 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:29.920 and girls film martyr in the ranks of the Gerula Struggle. 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.639 Leader Appo tried to reach out to all cities, to 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:36.399 all villages, to all families, and even to all individuals 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:43.159 in Rojawa Kalistan. This has created a strong national, social, cultural, 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:47.239 and let's say a philosophical point between Leader Apple and 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:52.920 the Rajava people because a neglected and divided people had 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:54.360 united around him. 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:56.960 This isn't an episode about the entire history of the PKK. 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.240 I wouldn't be the person to write that, but I 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.440 will attempt to speed run it here anyway. Upper was 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:06.639 arrested in Arabia in nineteen ninety nine. Ever since then 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.479 he's been held in prison, often without access to visitors 0:18:09.640 --> 0:18:11.760 or his lawyers, and at some points on an island 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.760 where he was a solitary prisoner surrounded by hundreds if 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:18.360 not thousands of guards. His human rights are almost universal 0:18:18.560 --> 0:18:21.440 knowledge to have been violated by this arrangement, and despite 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:25.160 a quarter century of detention and Turkish moves towards Europe, 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:27.359 there seems to be no willingness on a part of 0:18:27.359 --> 0:18:30.080 the Turkish state to release him. In his time in jail, 0:18:30.440 --> 0:18:33.080 he began to read more and correspond with many thinkers, 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:37.440 including Murray Bookchin. Buukchin influenced his sinking a great deal, 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:41.680 and gradually, through this and other influences, Osla moved away 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:45.679 from a Marxist Leninist analysis and national liberation goals and 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:50.240 instead began to conceive feminist and ecological revolution that decentralized power, 0:18:50.840 --> 0:18:53.119 ensured all authority positions were shared by a man and 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:56.280 a woman, and valued the environment as much or more 0:18:56.320 --> 0:19:00.639 than the economy. This libertarian left ideology came to be 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:04.120 known as democratic confederalism, and it is a guiding ethos 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:06.440 for Java and indeed the Casey Care as a whole. 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:09.879 The civil war in Syria provided an opening that the 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:14.080 Kurdistan Freedom movement took advantage of as ASAD forces withdrew 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:17.720 from their regions to fight elsewhere, didn't spring from the 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:21.160 ground in twenty eleven, but instead they'd spent decades building 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:24.560 a movement that they felt could replace the state. Today, 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:28.000 millions of people live, work and play under democratic confederist 0:19:28.040 --> 0:19:30.399 ideology in the Autonomous Area of North and East Syria, 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:33.720 where it was last year. It's not paradise, but it's 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:36.879 a special place, and by any metric, life there is 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:39.439 better than in the rest of Syria. Right now. For 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:43.000 over a decade, they've navigated a complex system of adversaries, 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:46.879 including the Syrian State, the Islamic State, and the Turkish State. 0:19:47.440 --> 0:19:49.639 Just this week, all three of them have tried to 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:54.240 attack Rajava. More than fifteen thousand people men and women 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:57.639 have died in the decade long war against the Islamic State, 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:01.840 which country to much reporting, remained ongoing. It is actually 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:03.879 car bombed a place not far from where I stayed 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:08.679 last October after i'd come home. At times, the USA 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:10.840 has supported the people of Javre in their battle against 0:20:10.840 --> 0:20:13.760 Islamic State, but it's also stood by as Turkish bombs 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:16.080 fell on them. But though ra Java is by far 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:19.800 the biggest territorial area which to democratic confederalism is in practice, 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:22.440 much as a movement remains in the mountains of southern 0:20:22.520 --> 0:20:26.240 Kurdistan in what is technically Iraqi territory. There are many 0:20:26.320 --> 0:20:28.800 more Kurdish people in Turkey, and as a recent election 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:31.480 results show, revolution by the ballot box is not really 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:35.400 an option for them. Javre enjoys autonomy, but it's still 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:38.240 very much ideologically twinned with the part of the movement 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:41.040 that remains in the mountains and dedicated to its struggle 0:20:41.119 --> 0:20:45.240 against the Turkish state. Turkey, in return, has crossed the 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:48.840 border with Iraq to attack the KCK and anyone else 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:52.600 who gets caught in the crossfire. As Nagros explained, this 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.480 is not new, but the recent change has been notable well. 0:20:56.040 --> 0:21:02.159 During the eighties, nineties and even after two thousand, the 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:08.040 Turkish Army used to do military operations to the other 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:11.560 side of the border into the Iraqi border for several months, 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:15.840 to a draw back to the other side of the 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:21.679 border to its own border afterwards after several months, and 0:21:22.119 --> 0:21:26.640 in that period it only had limited number of barracks 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:27.720 and bases in. 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:29.960 The Iraqi and the Iraqi territory. 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:35.840 The change now is that Teki has built a new 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:41.520 military roads from Scratch to the Credit Sand region to 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:46.359 northern Iraq. It has built more than one hundred big 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:49.879 and small military bases and barracks in the area and 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:54.760 has no intention to withdraw. As I said, the ultimate 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:58.720 goal is to is to annex all these lands to 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:00.000 the Turkish territory. 0:22:00.400 --> 0:22:04.200 Today, Turkish troops can be found deep inside Iraq. According 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:07.800 to the Community Peacemaker Teams, since December of twenty seventeen, 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:11.400 Turkish forces have built over forty bases anywhere from nine 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:14.679 to twenty five kilometers into Iraqi, Kurdistan's territory south of 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:18.600 its border end quote. They have dispatched hundreds of troops 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:22.320 and military vehicles into another state, set up checkpoints, and 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:25.199 even killed civilians a member of the Kig's military. The 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:31.639 Peshmerga fighting has caused massive wildfires. For example, in Sagale Village, 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:34.320 about fifty five percent of the agricultural land has been 0:22:34.359 --> 0:22:39.120 burned by Turkish attacks. Incidentally, Turkish shelling in the Autonomous 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:41.760 Area of North and East Syria has also caused similar 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:45.399 fires and destruction of crops in agricultural areas. The Kurdish 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:48.040 Freedom movement is very well established in the mountains of 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:51.840 southern Kurdistan, where they live in tunnels and caves. These 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:53.600 are not caves of tunnels like you played in a 0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:57.600 little child. We're talking about villages underground. This makes tracking 0:22:57.600 --> 0:23:00.840 them very hard. As we heard another episode, many of 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:03.919 the fighters said to Curtis down as Syrian Arabs repurposed 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:07.080 by Turkey and gind up an anti Kurdish sentiment. But 0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:09.639 this is perhaps the least concerning of the way the 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:12.800 tunnels are being attacked. Zagros explained some of the other 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:13.800 things that they've seen. 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:15.760 Data is that they use dogs. 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:20.080 They tie explosives to the dogs and send the dogs 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:26.200 into the tunnels and they explode the dogs wire remote control. 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:28.880 In addition to the dogs, he says that the Turkey 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:31.880 state uses chemical weapons inside the tunnels. There are also 0:23:31.960 --> 0:23:36.400 reports of suicide bombers definating themselves. The KTK also claims 0:23:36.600 --> 0:23:40.680 the Turkey uses thermobaric bombs sometimes called bunker busters, which 0:23:40.720 --> 0:23:43.240 create a huge pressure wave from subsequent vacuum. 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:47.440 Also, they are using thermobodic bombs. We have documented the 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:52.360 use of these thermobodic bombs. There are remnants of these bombs. 0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:56.399 They are using theemobodic or vacuum bombs against the tunnels, 0:23:57.240 --> 0:24:02.800 and they are using some form of explosives which are 0:24:02.800 --> 0:24:07.960 more powerful than thermobolic bombs. Got some freedom grillas have 0:24:08.000 --> 0:24:10.440 developed literature for it because they do know what kind 0:24:10.480 --> 0:24:13.240 of explosively did. But it has the effect of a 0:24:13.320 --> 0:24:17.359 nuclear bomb. We got some freedom grilla called nuclear bomb. 0:24:18.400 --> 0:24:21.840 They call it so because the effects are high, are 0:24:21.920 --> 0:24:25.119 higher than the thermobotic bombs. 0:24:25.320 --> 0:24:27.720 I asked Mohammed to explain how people reacting to the 0:24:27.720 --> 0:24:28.480 current situation. 0:24:29.359 --> 0:24:34.360 You know, you know invted some parts of you could 0:24:34.400 --> 0:24:35.000 understand that. 0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:39.639 Actually the the areas under the control or under the 0:24:39.760 --> 0:24:47.240 influence of character instead of KDP, and you know that 0:24:47.520 --> 0:24:48.920 people here have dislikes. 0:24:49.000 --> 0:24:53.639 This issue is like the version of Turkey to this area. 0:24:53.680 --> 0:24:58.520